


My Favorite Ghost

by cassieoh_draws (cassieoh), DiminishingReturns



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Clarke's three laws, Crisis of Faith, Discorporation (Good Omens), Far Future, M/M, Magical Realism, Melancholy, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Post-Canon, Temporary Character Death, abandoned earth, but like... its second cousin, how to heal when one is unaffected by time, in a Horizon Zero Dawn kind of way not a Last of Us kind of way, melancholy with a peaceful ending, nature reclaiming civilization, not quite angsty enough to be Angst With a Happy Ending, post-apocalyptic Earth, seeking answers in liminal spaces, weltschmerz
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25519108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassieoh/pseuds/cassieoh_draws, https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiminishingReturns/pseuds/DiminishingReturns
Summary: Decades after the world didn’t end, Heaven and Hell got their war — and nearly destroyed everything in the process.When Aziraphale finally manages to reacquire a corporation and return to Earth, he discovers he was gone longer than he thought and the planet has become unrecognizable. As he searches for Crowley and tries to figure out how he fits in a world that Heaven, Hell, and God have all wiped their hands of, nature works around him to reclaim the bones of an old civilization as the scraps of humanity build a new one.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 106
Kudos: 83
Collections: Good Omens Mini Bang





	1. Critical Point

**Author's Note:**

> Created for the 2020 Good Omens Mini Bang — art by cassieoh and words by DiminishingReturns. Betaed by the unparalleled [imperiousheiress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperiousheiress).
> 
> This story takes place after the events of Good Omens and spans the course of several centuries. It is worth noting that, while discorporation is temporary and no character deaths are explicitly shown, it's implied that the mortals in Aziraphale and Crowley's lives grow old and die of natural causes. Loss, grief, and loneliness are major themes, as are hope and healing. I promise there's light at the end of the tunnel (and flickers along the way), but the journey is a melancholy one.
> 
> The title for the fic is plucked from "Big God" by Florence + the Machine, and there are two playlists that accompany this story if that sort of thing interests you. A [lyrical playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7gjGswWdBilVXmFevjoLTL?si=EFWBTpMMTVGMWTOLAU9INg) (largely populated by Florence) that was used to brainstorm and plot, and an [instrumental playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1vMv402bywepmknzCteeDq?si=8wuIO91hQpe1I-N9xlGRdg) that set the mood for writing.

* * *

The concept of time was not one Aziraphale typically gave much thought to. As an immortal, it wasn’t something he _needed_ to give much thought to, as time bothered itself very little with him. There had been a few instances when it had made itself known, pressing around him briefly but always flowing on without him in the end. Standing on the Ark as the floodwaters crept above the rooflines had felt like watching time bleed into the world from a great wound in the sky. Planting a banyan sapling in a garden in Kolkata and returning two centuries later to find a tenaciously sprawling forest had filled him with such a sense of _magnitude_ that he had wondered how his heart could possibly contain it. Brewing his first perfect cup of tea, completely without miracles, the realization that every imperfect pot leading up to this one could not have been skipped had seeped through him in a slow bloom of wisdom earned.

He wasn’t a stranger to time, no matter how rarely the two of them crossed paths.

But this… This felt different somehow.

He stood on the bank of London Lake, watching the sun sink into the water that had once been his home, and couldn’t decide if this was a fresh start or a terrible tragedy.

He frowned and tried to imagine how it might have happened. The extent of the wrath that would have been necessary to reduce all of London to a crater. If it had been heavenly furor raining down from above, hellish fury boiling up from below, or some terrible combination as the two met in the middle. If it was a gradual erosion or an explosive sort of destruction that was over in a flash.

Whichever it had been felt irrelevant when considered in terms of _what came next_. The meandering path the years had taken in order to turn a city into a crater into a lake. The sheer amount of time that must have passed. His mind churned through scenarios involving rainfall, tectonic shifts, rising seas. Cascading causes and effects that he very much doubted any surviving humans would have had the luxury of cataloging.

He briefly considered chancing a miracle to walk out over the surface of the water. Aziraphale was the only being on the planet who would remember London as anything other than a body of water and the thought of peering down into the depths in search of some landmark was a magnetic one. A desperate grab for a reminder of the world that used to be, a glimpse of familiar architecture, perhaps even a remnant of the bookshop that he could pull to the surface.

But he dismissed the thought as quickly as it formed. London was gone. Caved in by some extraplanetary force a hundred or more years ago. Any scrap that could have survived such a blast would have long since been spirited away. It wasn’t the reason he was here, anyway.

“Right then,” he muttered. “No sense woolgathering.”

He drew in a slow breath, then let it out as a sigh as he turned his back on the lake. South was the next logical direction to go. They had had as much of a home in the South Downs as they had in London. If— _When_ Crowley also made it back to Earth, the cottage—or whatever was left of it—was where he’d go. Aziraphale was certain of this. The thought made turning his back on London’s grave bearable.

He reached for his wings instinctually as he walked, sending a sliver of his consciousness into the liminal plane where they existed and unfolding them in Earth’s atmosphere for the first time in millennia. Angels weren’t supposed to reveal their wings planetside these days, but it wasn’t as though Heaven would do anything about it any more. He wasn’t sure they _could_ do anything about it, given the state things had been in upstairs.

 _Humans then,_ hissed a voice at the back of his mind. _They’re diminished, not extinct, and they’re certainly not blind_.

He lifted his wings high above his head and assured the voice that there was nothing to fret about, that he’d fly high enough to be mistaken for a bird, or simply alter the memories of nosy humans if it came to that. That it would soon be dark enough to not matter and the risk was calculated. A counterargument started to form—something about _miracles_ and _rumors_ —but he brought his wings down hard and kicked off the ground before it could fully precipitate. A whoosh of air filled his ears and a bright ache roared to life in his limbs as he pushed higher. The voice fell silent.

London Lake was not the only shock to the landscape. Far from it. The strange new lay of the land came into focus as he gained altitude. The earth had buckled and shifted during the conflict, torn open in fits of pique that could have belonged to either side. In Aziraphale’s time away, however, the turmoil had calmed. Gashes in the land had been cooled and soothed by rainwater, creating a system of rivers and oxbow lakes that snaked through new hills and forests.

A creeping vine twisted through all of it like the stitching in a quilt, bright yellow flowers standing out against leaves darkened to deep green shadows by the twilight. Flowering vines clustered around the banks of lakes and rivers in dense thickets, climbed up and over trees, blanketed the occasional skeletal remains of long-abandoned buildings. A quick stripe of the old motorways could occasionally be spotted under the sprawl of vegetation, but never quite enough to serve as a landmark.

Eventually finding the sea was the only way he was sure he had headed south at all. The sea but… no chalk cliffs. None of the hills or towns or roads he recognized at all. Just an expanse of alien greenery sloping gently down to meet a steely plane of water.

Aziraphale frowned and spread his wings wide, leaning back to let the increased drag slow him down. Every scale and dial of his internal compass was _certain_ that the cottage was miles farther south— that he hadn’t hit the chalk cliffs yet because he hadn’t travelled far enough— but the existence of the sea was not exactly up for debate.

He’d seen no one during his flight. Granted, the bizarre landscape and fading light had pulled his attention in a dozen different directions, but there was still no sign of any humans or human settlements. No towns or villages, no beaten paths through the forests, nothing familiar to calibrate himself to. He was only certain this was England at all, that the lake had once been London, because his point of entry was the same as his point of exit.

Unsure of where to go next, he found a sliver of rocky beach and landed. The realization was approaching him like a wave and he suddenly felt the need for solid ground under his feet. The South Downs were gone. Whether they’d been caved in and covered by the sea or had slowly crumbled away seemed inconsequential now, staring out at the still water.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and let himself lose track of time. He pictured time settling on his shoulders, then lifting off again. Moving on and forgetting him as it always did. Time flowed while he sat unchanged on the bank; that was the arrangement they had operated under for thousands of years. This was no different.

When he opened his eyes again, the last shreds of twilight had dissolved into night, and a shocking display of stars filled the sky. More than he’d seen in millennia. The splash of the Milky Way in full view and enough stars to cluster together like streaks of dust, disappearing into the horizon in a grey-white arc.

 _Not stars,_ Aziraphale realized, as another wave of realization crashed into him. He’d heard the talk before finding his way back to Earth, but hadn’t been sure how much to believe. Staring at the arc of dust streaked across the sky and reflecting off the glassy sea, he felt it finally sink in. _The moon. What’s left of it._


	2. Melting

“Do you remember when we were strangers?” Aziraphale asked.

“Not really.”

“Oh, come now. What about Eden?”

Crowley shrugged. “Didn’t think you were strange.”

“Tsk, don’t be contentious. You know what I mean. _Unknown_.”

“You never felt unknown either,” said Crowley. “Climbing the wall that day was the first thing that felt right in a long time.”

Aziraphale hummed into the warm light of the bedroom, a sound that was more a feeling in his center than anything heard. A soft rumble, a subtle shift of muscle and blood as he exhaled, almost imperceptible vibrations that rippled through his limbs. He imagined the sound radiating like rings on the surface of a pond, slowly expanding out to his palms and into where his fingers gently tangled together with Crowley’s, a wave meeting the shore.

Life was marvelously slow in their cottage. Sleepy and peaceful. The days drifted like dandelion seeds in the halcyon summer air — weightless and unhurried, occasionally touching the ground and blooming into moments like this one.

Crowley bowed his head until the tip of his nose nested in Aziraphale’s hair. He took a long slow breath, then released it as a longer, slower exhale. When his voice eventually bled back into the room, it was muffled. A murmur folded inside a smile.

“What about you?”

“You were a stranger on the wall, I think.”

“You’d heard of me though, surely.” The stretch of Crowley’s smile tingled across Aziraphale’s scalp as he spoke. “I was a pretty big deal in that garden. A proper celebrity.”

“Hush.”

“Never.”

Aziraphale turned his head just enough to press a kiss into Crowley’s collarbone. “There was a moment, right after seeing you for the first time,” he said, speaking softly into his favorite constellation of freckles, “when I had absolutely no idea who you were.”

“And what was it that made me stop being strange?”

“I’ll let you know when it happens.”

“Tsk. Contentious,” said Crowley.

“I haven’t a clue. At some point between you going on about lead balloons and—”

“Lead _what_?”

Aziraphale blinked. “Balloons. You slithered up next to me and started talking about lead balloons.”

“Bloody weird thing to say.”

“Yes, it was, rather. You honestly don’t remember that?”

“Do _you_ remember every conversation you had six thousand years ago?”

“I remember that one.”

“Why’s it matter, angel?” hummed Crowley.

“It doesn't _matter_ ,” Aziraphale said, untangling their hands and draping his arm across Crowley’s chest, “but you don’t think it’s at least a little bit interesting?”

“You mean the balloon thing? Because saying _that_ in 4000 BC does seem—”

“The _moment_ , Crowley. There must have been a moment between being strangers and being known when we were…” Aziraphale trailed off, losing his train of thought in the pinpricks of dust that flickered in and out of the sunlight.

“Nothing?” offered Crowley.

“Oh, no,” Aziraphale frowned, “surely we were _something_.”

“Hmm. Hidden?”

Aziraphale shook his head and turned to bury his face in the crook between Crowley's neck and shoulder. It remained such a wonderful oddity, finding all the different ways they fit together like puzzle pieces. He closed his eyes and breathed in the familiar smell — almost cinnamon, almost autumn leaves, almost campfire. All of these things but not quite any of them. Just Crowley.

“Mysteries?” Crowley tried.

“Closer, I think,” Aziraphale said with a sigh— a sigh that he felt in two places at once, as though he were standing in some ethereal borderland, his body anchored in reality while his voice sent its tendrils into…

Dreams. _A dream then_.

“Is it though?” Crowley’s voice took on a muted quality. The slightest wooden edge, as though he were speaking from the other side of a closed door. “Because it seems to me—and you know I mean this with all the love in the world, angel—but it seems to me that these are pretty far from the kinds of questions you would normally ask.”

Aziraphale kept his eyes shut, afraid to move for fear of shattering the structure of the dream. He could _feel_ his body now, laid out in the familiar alcove of his bunk, and tried to will his mind away from it, back into the dream. Back to the comfort of the cottage that no longer existed, with its bookshelves and its wine cellar and its telescope on the back patio. Surely with proper concentration, he could tip into the side of reality where Crowley was. What _good_ was dreaming if he couldn’t do that much?

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Crowley continued, his voice becoming thick and warbled, as though Aziraphale were suddenly listening from underwater. “You know you can ask me anything.”

 _Perhaps I’m changing,_ Aziraphale wanted to say. _Perhaps we both are. The world didn’t end and we don’t have to hide anymore and now we get to be everything we never could before._

“It’s just that lately,” Crowley said, “you’ve really leaned away from ineff—”

“Oh, don’t you start,” Aziraphale laughed, unable to resist the bait. He heard himself speak in a bright clear voice. A sound that came from the wrong side of the barrier of sleep, causing the dandelion puff of the dream to release its grip on his mind and float out of his reach. The wobble of Crowley’s voice became rain pattering against the roof. The dissonant smells of rain on metal pushed out cinnamon and smoke.

He sighed and opened his eyes, giving up the final ghost of the dream.

The narrow room was a familiar sight, though not the intimate, homey type of comfort he had once known at the cottage or the bookshop. This was familiarity built by repetition. Muscle memory honed by returning to the same place every day for decades, staring at the same walls, watching the wood slowly warp and the window panes build layers of patina. Not a home so much as a safe place to perch. Shelter that had proved itself capable of weathering the elements, even if it was by no means immune to them.

But even without the comforts of home, there was a certain peace of mind to be found in simple shelter. Aziraphale laid in the bunk and stared out the window as the last wisps of the dream dissipated. He felt an odd sort of calm settle on him in place of sleep as he took stock of the small components that made up this tiny ecosystem he found himself constantly returning to.

Rain pattered out a steady static that was a step above a shower but one below a downpour. Sunlight—filtered once through heavy clouds and again through clouded glass—filled the room in a diluted, silvery splash, pulling a memory of marquetry to the faded surface of the wood paneling and built-in furniture. He had long since torn up the plush carpeting after it had fallen victim to mildew, but all other changes had simply been time — the slow but steady drip of years into a morbid sort of curiosity that kept him from miraculously preserving this place like an insect in amber. The mudcrack of a painting here. The bloom of tarnish across a mirror there. The myriad fascinating ways a luxury passenger train became a fixed piece of the landscape in the absence of passengers.

Vines had started to creep into view outside the window again, their washed out silhouettes snaking across the glass as they forged a path to the roof. They were more a nuisance than anything sinister, but still one that he would either need to deal with soon or forfeit the train to their tireless advance. It was just as well — he was running low on tea.

The thought of tea pulled him out of the bunk and the rest of the way into the waking world. He stood and stepped quickly through his small rituals, pushing miniscule miracles through his fingers to maintain the buttons on his waistcoat, the seams of his jacket, the loops of his bowtie. He patted the pocket watch in his front pocket, straightened his spine, and traced his beaten path through the narrow corridors to the dining car’s kitchenette.

Modern tea had been one of the stranger things to get used to. It was still a slow, thoughtful, tactile process. A way to gently prod all the senses, a comforting routine that provided a feeling of home when little else did. A social link or a solitary meditation, depending on the situation. This particular facet of the Old World remained the same, haunting and familiar in spite of the taste being entirely new.

The creeping vine that grew wild across the islands— _rosemary_ , as the humans had taken to calling it—was many things. As far as he knew, it was unique to the New World, having sprouted sometime between his discorporation and his reentry. It was invasive, hardy to the point of invincibility, startlingly colorful when it flowered. It was also nontoxic. Correctly prepared, it was delicious.

Aziraphale sent another miracle into the kettle to heat the water to the precise temperature and poured it over the dried rosemary, glancing at the whitening clouds out the window as the leaves and flowers steeped. The faintest sliver of blue was visible over the trees — the first indicator that the morning’s rains were almost spent. He briefly considered heading out now to see how the new paint had held up against the weather, but figured there was no point in rushing. Instead, he watched the water slowly turn gold and counted the seconds until he could strain the tea. The steam had a smell that bordered on sickly sweet, but the tea itself had a subdued, grassy flavor — tart and almost floral, gaining a pleasant bitter edge as it cooled. The layers of it were unlike anything he could recall from the Old World, but it had endeared itself to him in an unexpected way.

He cradled the cup in his hands and moved on to the observation car where his current collection of artifacts were kept. He’d dragged tables, shelves, and carts here from every corner of the train, and slowly filled them with an assortment of painstakingly unearthed Old World items. Mismatched and dilapidated shoes and clothing, rusted tools and broken clocks, a pair of heavily weathered garden gnomes that had inexplicably washed up on the beach. Anything he could find. It had taken decades to compile the train car full of patchwork history. Sometimes years would pass without him finding anything salvageable enough to bring back to the train. Other times, he would locate an incredible cache of pre-apocalypse artifacts preserved in a cellar or encased in the rusted shell of a car.

Ten years ago he’d had his biggest find yet — an ancient passenger plane, crashed some fifty miles west of the train, the forest completely grown over and around it, sheltering it from the majority of the elements. The deployed emergency exits on the main cabin of the plane had given the rosemary enough of a foothold to turn most of the once habitable space into an impenetrable thicket, but the cargo hold in its underbelly remained remarkably dry and undamaged. The contents of the nylon and canvas suitcases had been a loss, but there were twenty-seven hard shell cases waiting for him like gift-wrapped time capsules.

He’d spent days going through the old luggage and had made five trips to the train and back, hauling souvenirs and relics to his makeshift museum. The trip had awarded him with some of his favorite artifacts — an umbrella, a family of Russian nesting dolls, a tortoiseshell hair brush, a complete chess set, and a keychain shaped like a fish with a dozen keys attached to it. He’d even found three pairs of eyeglasses, though those did sting a bit, seeing as there was somehow not a single salvageable book in the entire sardine tin of the cargo hold.

He stopped in front of the table that held his collection of books. Or rather, the remnants he’d been able to find over the years. Paper books had not been designed to stand up against the daily downpour-sunburst cycle, and rosemary seemed to find its way into any shelter that might protect the more delicate old world relics from the floods and mildew and sun bleaching. Occasionally, he still found the remains of books tucked away in a ruin, always sodden and useless, but he always lugged them back to the train anyway, putting their warped spines and brittle, rotted pages on display like some bizarre graveyard. None of them were readable, of course—very few could even be opened without crumbling—but they served as a memory of sorts. A reminder that he shouldn’t get too comfortable, that he shouldn’t stop searching.

Aziraphale sipped his tea and watched as a sunbeam fell across the car, marking the end of the morning rain. He slowly worked his way back to the kitchenette, traded in his teacup for an empty basket, and grabbed his machete on his way out the door.

Hacking the vines away from the train wasn’t exactly a thrilling job, but he found he didn’t mind. It was active and repetitive enough to be meditative, and having a reason to go outside on days when he didn’t go into the field kept him from pottering about the observation car hour after melancholy hour. In the absence of books, time with the machete had joined dreaming as a way to let his mind wander.

After a monotonous few hours of clearing the tracks, walls, and windows, he leaned the machete against the train and picked up his basket. He carefully pushed aside the final tangle of rosemary climbing the observation car to reveal the new lettering — _A.Z. Fell & Co., _painted in bright yellow. It had been a tricky mixture of beeswax, botanical pigments, and miracles to get the paint at the right consistency, but it had turned out bright and smooth and, if the rain beading on the surface of the letters was any indication, water-resistant. He ran a thumb over the crossbar in the _A_ and smiled sadly.

“What’s it say?” came a voice from behind him.

Aziraphale turned with a start. A teenage girl was crouched in one of the rosemary thickets beyond the path, staring at him intently. Her pale hair was pulled away from her face in a tight braid, making her large, dark eyes appear especially owlish. She didn’t blend into her surroundings so much as she was simply still enough to draw no attention to herself.

“Erm—” Aziraphale looked back and forth between the lettering and the girl a few times. “It’s… my name.” When she said nothing, he added, “A.Z. Fell. My name is Fell.”

“Oh,” she said. “So this is, um… your house?”

“In a sense.” He shifted the basket to his other arm, noting how she tensed and drew back when he moved.

“Why do you live way out here?”

“Perhaps I like it,” Aziraphale said, turning back to the rosemary snaking up the side of the train, but keeping her in his peripheral vision. He began to twist flowers, buds, and young leaves off the vine and place them in his basket. She relaxed noticeably.

“But— There’s nothing out here,” she said.

“That depends entirely on how you define the borders of _out here_. There’s a village close enough.”

“It’s eight miles. More if you need to hike up to the bridge to cross the river.”

“That’s not so far, all things considered.”

“But you’re—” she paused and took a breath. When she spoke again, she sounded almost concerned. “You’re alone.”

Aziraphale shrugged and twirled one of the flowers between his fingers. “There’s more out here than you might think,” he said softly, staring into the bright yellow spiral. “My work is out here. Surely you understand needing to follow your work?”

“Wha— But— Yes, but—” she stammered, tripping over her words as they slipped away from language and into nonsensical sounds. He turned to watch as she sat back on her heels and heaved a frustrated sigh. It had been years since he’d had a visitor and he hadn’t realized until this moment that he’d missed it.

He smiled at her. “What about you? What brings you out here to the middle of nowhere?”

“Um. Hunting. Gathering. Clearing the trails.” She blinked at him a few times. “You know, just… just normal stuff.”

“And this is off your beaten path I take it?”

She nodded.

“It’s not your first time here though.”

She bit her lip but said nothing.

“Oh don’t worry,” he said, waving the flower at her dismissively. “I’ve never spotted you before. You’re very good at what you do. Extremely sneaky. But you’re apparently familiar enough with me and my movements to know I’m alone.”

“I—” she began, worrying her brows together. She pushed herself to her feet and looked over her shoulder, all trace of her former stillness dissolving as she took a clumsy step back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean— I’ll go—”

“It’s quite alright, don’t misunderstand me,” Aziraphale said hurriedly. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of curiosity. Please. Stay. If you’d like.”

She turned back to him slowly and appraised him for a long moment. “You’re sure?”

He nodded. “I can make us some tea.”

“O— Okay.”

“Splendid,” he said, smiling brightly. He turned to climb into the train, then stopped and looked back at her, head tilted to one side. “What’s your name, dear?”

“Um. Minna.”

“Well, Minna. You’re welcome to come inside if you want,” he said, stepping up into the car. He hung his basket over his arm but made no movement to retrieve the machete. “Or I can bring it out, it makes no difference to me.”

He only made it halfway to the kitchenette when he heard her behind him.

“Whoa. What is all this stuff?”

Aziraphale stopped walking and turned to face her. She stood just inside the door, craning her neck around as though she couldn’t decide what to look at first. Now that she was out of the rosemary, he saw that she wore trousers tucked into sturdy leather boots. Her wool tunic was hooded and cinched at the waist, a knife and several utility pouches hanging from the belt. At first blush, everything about her seemed to have a function or purpose, but in this light he could also see embroidered flourishes along her shoulders and cuffs, and a strand of painted beads tied around her wrist. It struck him that she didn’t necessarily look out of place on the train, even though her world had almost nothing in common with this one.

“This is my work,” he said. “I’m… a historian.”

Her eyes went wide. “This is all Old World?”

“It is.”

“You go into the ruins?” she breathed. She took a hesitant step toward the closest display—the chess set he’d recovered from the plane—and kept speaking without lifting her eyes from the table. “ _That’s_ where you go when you leave? How? _Why?_ ”

“I would think the _how_ of it is a bit self explanatory. You simply find a ruin and go inside. As for the why—”

“But the radiation!”

“A myth,” Azirapahel scoffed. “I assure you, aside from structural weaknesses, they’re quite safe.”

Minna jerked her eyes up to him and gave him a look like he’d just sprouted horns. “They are _not_ ,” she insisted. “All the old places— They’re full of— You can’t—”

“This is an old place,” Aziraphale said, nodding at the door behind her.

“It’s not one of their _towns_. It’s not a _ruin_.”

 _Quite the mental gymnastics you’re jumping through with that one, my dear girl_ , he wanted to say. Instead, he sighed and moved to put the chess board between them.

“Minna,” he said in the most soothing voice he could summon. “Have you ever been to a ruin? Do you know anyone who has? And I mean firsthand, not a friend of a friend.”

“Well, _no,_ but that’s the point, isn’t it? We all know better.”

“Mm. And how do you know?” Aziraphale asked, picking up a pawn. “Stories passed down through the ages?”

She frowned and watched his hands. “People who go in get sick. Or they never come back. It’s… been a long time, but that’s because we listen to the elders’ warnings.”

“Ah, but that’s the thing about cautionary tales, isn’t it?” he said. “They're just stories, and stories change the tiniest bit with every telling until eventually they become something else entirely. Not by any fault of the storyteller mind you, it’s simply the way of the medium. It’s why I do all this though,” he said, using the chess piece to gesture at the long line of tables and shelves. “I collect and remember the past as it actually was before it fades completely from memory.”

She let her eyes do a slow sweep of the car, the frown staying resolutely in place. “There’s so much. How long have you been doing this?”

“Years. Many years. And I’ve never encountered even a whisper of radiation,” he said, and held the pawn out to her. “You can’t believe everything you’re told. Sometimes you have to find out for yourself.”

He half expected her to turn and walk out at that. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had, but instead, she reached out and accepted the chess piece. She held it gingerly in both hands and took another step into the car.

“Still want that tea?” he asked cheerfully.

She nodded, then leaned down to peer at a salt shaker shaped like a cactus.

“Right then. Back in a jiffy,” he said, and left her to explore as he made his way back to the kitchenette.

Nothing he’d told her had been a lie, of course. Regardless of the effects that radiation may or may not have on his corporation, the fact remained that there was no fallout from the celestial war. None that he could find anyway. With the exception of the moon, whatever Heaven and Hell had done to their battlefield had healed remarkably well.

He found himself wondering how stories about the moon would have evolved as he pulled out two cups and the tin of tea. He doubted Minna would be ready to process that particular truth any time soon, but thought he’d still be interested to hear the local folklore about the ring arcing across the night sky. Perhaps hear how stories about seasons or tides had changed, if they’d survived at all. He could tell her about the artifacts or teach her how to play chess in return. An exchange of information. He’d spent a century putting together this museum, but this was the first time anyone had seemed open to _learning_ about it.

He filled the kettle and pulled a miracle out of the air to heat the water.

Nothing happened.

He frowned and snapped his fingers. The motion had never been necessary to perform miracles, but the somatic flare had always helped him focus on it. A way to make abstract celestial energies feel tangible and compatible with an earthly plane of existence. A bridge he’d built between the two sides of himself, by way of this small flourish.

Still, nothing happened.

He blinked. Closed his eyes and concentrated. Placed his hand on the kettle and reached into the ether with his mind, searching for the familiar hum of magic. Over the years, he’d come to visualize the space as a kitchen, his miracles as a spice rack. Pulling a miracle from one side of himself to the other had become as intuitive as knowing when to add a dash of spice or a touch of sweetness to a dish. He hadn’t questioned his knowledge of the kitchen in… well, maybe ever.

Aziraphale took a slow breath and explored the ethereal in-between space. The kitchen was still there—he could feel the shelves, the worktop, the tools—but the larder was empty. The stove was cold and the spices were nowhere to be found.

His magic was gone.


	3. Evaporation

Life moved around them at a startling clip. This was nothing new, of course — Aziraphale and Crowley had seen the world do a hard reset before. Floods, plagues, wars, natural disasters — the planet had flirted with the idea of throwing in the towel only to change its mind at the last minute countless times. And humanity bounced back with it every time, picking up the pieces and tenaciously carrying on.

Except this time, they hadn’t been diminished first. Armageddon had been dodged and Adam had made sure that the planet bounced _forward_ for once. The first few years were subtle. People were less inclined to notice things like polar ice caps and local bee populations going _un_ changed — but then the rainforests started to recover. Coral reefs started to heal. Highly efficient solar cells became widely available. Breakthroughs in nanotechnology saw the invention of atmosphere scrubbers and the air was cleaner than it had been since the pre-industrial era.

For the first decade, Aziraphale only had a vague suspicion about Adam’s involvement in the kick start to the planet. This level of natural progress, while improbable, wasn’t impossible, and the former Antichrist showed no signs of being anything other than _formerly_ magical. Environmental, physical, and intellectual evolutions all taking a step forward at the same time for once seemed more likely than an eleven year old having the sort of foresight necessary to set such a cascading chain of events in motion.

It was when the Franklinia—a tea plant native to North America and extinct in the wild for two centuries—began to pop up all over the globe, that the vague suspicion crystallized into an assumption.

Aziraphale stared at the potted Franklinia plant Anathema still kept on her kitchen windowsill. The same one she had brought with her from America and tricked into having a will to live. The stubborn, twiggy sprout that had launched many a spirited lecture about the vital nature of ecological preservation. Adam had hung on every word of those rants, enamored with every detail.

_An important exercise in witchcraft_ , Anathema had said twenty-five years ago when Aziraphale asked why she didn’t relocate it to the greenhouse.

_A piece of home_ , she said today when Crowley glared at the spindly thing in an attempt to scare it out of being rootbound. _A reminder_.

_Sentimental bollocks_ , Crowley had grumbled, then handed the brightly gift-wrapped package off to Newt and sidled up to the kitchen island to help Anathema ice the cake.

The house was very full. Georgie Device-Pulsifer celebrating their sixteenth birthday was eventful enough to pull all the people in their orbit in for a joyful sort of crash landing. Newt sat at the dining room table in front of a semicircle of teenagers, gleefully guiding them through the impromptu first level of a Dungeons & Dragons game. Anathema leaned over the coffee table in the living room running another group of kids through tarot readings, a conspiratorial glint in her eye. Anathema and Newt’s youngest was sprawled on the rug next to Brian’s twins, the three of them scribbling in coloring books. And the Them laughed and chattered over pints on the other side of the room, somehow the most boisterous group in a house full of teenagers.

It was all a bit _much_. Pleasant, certainly, but that much love and delight from that many sources, all packed under one roof, felt a bit like stepping out of a cellar and into a bright summer day. His eyes hadn’t had a chance to adjust yet. Which is why he was cloistered at the kitchen table with Tracy and Shadwell and a cup of tea, focusing on the smell of bergamot and letting his mind wander into the one tenacious bloom clinging to Anathema’s Franklinia.

_Flora_ , an eleven year old Adam had named the little potted tree. _Last of her kind_.

Tracy pulled him from his reverie with a hum into her teacup. “Been a while since you’ve been to a house this full, hasn’t it?”

Aziraphale gave his head a small shake. “That obvious?”

“Not at all,” she scoffed with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I just happen to know exactly what your love radar feels like. Certain things were very _loud_.”

Shadwell snorted and grumbled something about _heathens_ , but not before Aziraphale caught the wave of contentment that rolled off of him. Post-apocalypse life had been good to the sergeant. The people surrounding him seemed to have his brand of harmless prickliness perfectly mapped and he was happy to observe them from behind condensed milk and poorly masked amusement.

“One way of putting it, I suppose,” Aziraphale said. “There’s been quite a lot to adjust to since… you know.” He trailed off and looked between the groups, suddenly wondering where Crowley was.

“He’s in the garden, dear,” said Tracy, rotating her teacup in its saucer. Her dress was lavender today, and the light caught in the small iridescent beads sewn into her cuffs when she moved. “Slinked out the back door when he thought no one was watching.”

Aziraphale blinked. Then he smiled at her and clasped her hand between both of his, feeling deeply thankful for her grounding presence.

“I should probably see what that’s about then,” he said, pulling his hands back to himself and pushing back from the table. “Save us a slice?”

“No promises,” she laughed. “I shan’t be held responsible for what the appetites of teenagers will do to a poor, defenseless cake.”

Aziraphale’s smile bloomed into a laugh. He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze as he made his way past the table toward the back door, slipping into the cool evening air.

Anathema and Newt’s garden was carefully cultivated in all the ways that mattered. There was a vegetable patch, herb boxes, and flowerbeds full of perennials, but things were otherwise left to nature’s whims. Clover and moss ran through the veins between the flagstones, tangling with the occasional stubborn dandelion that pushed its head up through the garden path. Sweet alyssum sprawled between the tended spaces in lieu of grass, a spill of green shoots and tiny white flowers. And two Franklinia trees flanked the kitchen door, tall enough to peek over the roof. The lazy flow of the path wound its way through the smaller Franklinias that grew healthy and wild through the garden.

They were lovely flowering plants, with bright white crêpe paper petals fanning out around a dollop of yellow pollen. The flowers bloomed with a delicate citrusy smell in the summer, and the bright, glossy leaves turned a vibrant red in autumn. It was early enough in the season that the Franklinia was dressed in both pale flowers and ruddy leaves.

A fork in the path took him to an old oak tree where it loomed over the low garden wall in the far corner of the garden. Ivy had been allowed to creep over the wall, clinging to the stone until the entire length of it was a barrier of solid green.

Crowley leaned against the oak, head bowed and back to the house, the dusky golden twilight shimmering through the canopy and glinting off his hair in coppery flashes. Aziraphale cleared his throat as he reached the tree. Crowley looked up from fiddling with his mobile and sighed, slipping it into his pocket.

“Hey, angel,” he said as Aziraphale perched on the wall facing him.

“Too much birthday party?” Aziraphale asked. The sounds of chatter and laughter, clinking silverware, and tinny music floated out of the open window and across the garden to reach them in their quiet corner. “A dozen teenagers can certainly be… a _lot_.”

Crowley let out a _pfft_ sound, his shoulders lifting slightly with the effort. “Nah, it’s great. Georgie really takes after their mum. A real firebrand.”

“Mm. Twilight then,” Aziraphale said sagely. He lifted his head to watch the softening light play in the leaves. “The golden hour can be so hard to catch. Such a fleeting beauty.”

“Wha— No. I mean, sure. S’nice I guess. It’s just… loud in there. Is all,” Crowley said, his voice creeping into a bit of a stammer as he spoke. “Wanted to— Y’know— Make a phone call.” He shrugged and cleared his throat, then fell still with his gaze locked somewhere on the lane beyond the garden wall.

“Did you catch him this time?”

Crowley grunted and shook his head.

“Did you leave a message?” Aziraphale asked. Then, with a soft smile, “I’m sure he’d love to hear your voice.”

Another grunt, but this time stretched and drawn out until sounds coalesced into words. “Mmngh, nah. S’fine. S’just as well. He’s not a kid anymore. Makes sense that he wouldn’t…” Speech gave way to vague hand gestures, then he seemed to give up on trying to communicate whatever nebulous emotion was twisting through him. He crossed his arms and slumped back against the tree with a sharp exhale instead.

Aziraphale’s mind extrapolated on its own. _Wouldn’t… need. Have time. Want_. There seemed to be no way to complete the sentiment that didn’t cast a complicated shadow.

The subject of Warlock had always been just that. Complicated. A moving target from the very beginning; a relationship built on a foundation of misunderstandings, smoke and mirrors, and feigned identities. An angel and a demon as the outsourced consciences to the Antichrist-in-training, a daring covert op to save the world from the wrath of a celestial war. Bravery and rebellion in the face of a looming apocalypse.

Thankfully, all that had been rubbish. In the end, Warlock had been a perfectly normal boy and his godfathers found that the line between pretending to be something and actually becoming it disappeared before they even noticed it blurring. _Pretending_ to be the Dowling staff was all well and good at first. The lullabies and games were an abstracted line in the job description. Movie nights and trips to the park were opportunities to sway Warlock’s occult powers to a position of neutrality. Sitting up with him when he came down with the flu or rocking him back to sleep after a nightmare was just part of the act.

Right up until Crowley could hear the first sniffles of a tantrum brewing from across the garden and immediately know if it meant _I’m hungry_ or _I’m tired_ or _I’m hurt_ and bring the correct version of nanny to the rescue. Until Aziraphale could _see_ the fierce affection for the boy kindling behind Crowley’s eyes, and feel a protective pride of his own building in return.

Until they shared a very real, very strong love for the boy, and it was suddenly not an act in the slightest. It had been the start of something new for the two of them. Six thousand years of friendship cast in a new light by the act of accidental, yet enthusiastic, parenthood. Warlock had pulled away the veil between them to reveal the possibility of a quieter, gentler life.

Aziraphale steadied himself on the wall, pushing his hands into the ivy on either side of him. He twisted his fingers into the vines and admired how the last shreds of daylight clung to Crowley’s angular features — dark glasses and sharp edges somehow not out of place in their friends’ well-loved garden. A familiar love rustled in his center. Adam Young may have saved the planet in the name of humanity, but Warlock Dowling had given the world to the two of them.

“Well,” Aziraphale said. “I’m sure he’s just busy with Nico.”

An amused huff and a quick smile passed through Crowley. “Yeah,” he said, unmistakably fond. “Those two really were made for each other. Thick as thieves.”

“Mm. What was it they were up to last time you talked? Building a dollhouse?”

“Tree house,” Crowley corrected, a laugh fully escaping him this time. The stiffness drained out of his posture as slow as water through a pinhole as he spoke, a drop calmer with every word. _The Warlock Effect_ , as Aziraphale had taken to calling it in his head. “Person-sized. _Them_ sized. ‘Making up for lost time,’ he said.”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to laugh at that. “Good for them,” he said appreciatively. “It’s so easy for adults to lose that spark.”

“That’s— ah,” Crowley cut himself off with a curt nod and a grumble deep in his throat. He shoved off the tree and joined Aziraphale on the wall. “That’s Warlock for you.”

_That’s our boy_ , Aziraphale thought. “I’m very glad they found each other,” he said instead.

Crowley crossed his arms and made another nonverbal reply, but leaned into Aziraphale in the way he did when he was most at ease, creating a seam between them from shoulder to elbow. It was the tentative kind of contact they had sunk into after the world didn’t end. They draped themselves over each other like exceptionally pampered cats while in the comfort of their cottage, but the six thousand year old habits of subterfuge and camouflage had proved much more difficult to break everywhere else. Still, they created ways to touch, and Aziraphale found he appreciated this quiet, secretive facet of their relationship—holding each other up like two cards in a card castle—as much as he did their luxurious lie-ins.

They observed the distant party as the golden hour dimmed around them. A spirited chorus of _Happy Birthday_ bellowed across the garden as the sunset lit the horizon, shrieks and laughter rang out as the colors faded, and dancing silhouettes became visible through the curtains as twilight shifted into dark blue shadows around them. Crowley stopped trying to hide his smile, Aziraphale watched the sky as the first stars came out, and both of them leaned.

“Christ,” Crowley muttered into the fading light. “They must think we’re so boring.”

“We’re an angel and a demon. ‘Boring’ isn’t the word most humans would use to describe us.”

“A _retired_ angel and demon who attend teenagers’ birthday parties instead of blessing and wiling the masses.”

“First of all, we attended plenty of birthday parties before retir—”

“—Yeah, but no hellhound this time.”

“No hellhound _ever_ , if memory serves.”

“Fair point.”

“Second of all—”

“—No babe in a manger either.”

“And _second_ of all,” Aziraphale pressed on, giving Crowley’s shoulder a playful shove with his own, “I’m not sure sulking in the garden while everyone else eats cake counts as attending.”

“The occasional sulk is vital to demon upkeep,” huffed Crowley, leaning a little harder against Aziraphale. “We rust otherwise. Surely you knew what you were getting into.”

“I’m certain it didn’t come up before your warranty ran out.”

Crowley snorted and reached for Aziraphale’s hand. He hooked their pinkies and pulled him out of the ivy, then tangled the rest of their fingers together. It was a tiny gesture, but managed to feel extremely daring, even after twenty-five years.

“Shoulda read the fine print, angel.”

“Mm, but then I might never have discovered how much I like rust,” Aziraphale said, resting his head on Crowley’s shoulder. “It’s a lovely color on you. An admirable patina.”

“ _Admirable patina_ ,” Crowley laughed. “Gosh, please never change.” Then, after the silence stretched long enough that the last of the blue shadows disappeared into the night, he muttered, “Still think we’re boring, but… S’maybe not so bad.”

Aziraphale watched the hazy shadows of their human friends through the window—the Them with children of their own, Anathema and Newt with their deep laugh lines and softening edges, Tracy and Shadwell in their winter years and content to watch from the peace of the sidelines—and realized this was in all likelihood the last time all of them would be together at once. That after tonight, they would drift apart again to finish their lives in their own ways, however rowdy or serene those ways might be.

He closed his eyes and breathed in the familiar smoke-and-leaves smell. “Boring and bored and aren’t those just wonderful things to be able to be?”

He focused on the backdrop of party noise. Cool night air on his face and Crowley's hand in his. The faint edge of early autumn hovering around them — the crispness just before things turned soggy.

Flowers and rosemary from the garden, his temple resting on almost-campfire. It was boring. It was paradise.

But… Hadn’t there been a layer of spice? Something was missing, something adjacent to cinnamon. Or was it cloves?

Nutmeg?

How odd that he could remember the exact outline of a flower pot on a windowsill, the color of Tracy’s dress that day, the smell of a long-extinct herb — but not this vital detail.

He opened his eyes. He didn’t remember closing them, but that had been part of the point of coming out here. Reflection, meditation, prayer. Perhaps some combination of the three. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was reflecting, meditating on, or praying to, so he hadn’t tried to define it in any deeper way than just “appreciating the twilight.”

Blue hour had come and gone in the time that Aziraphale’s mind had wandered, taking the line between sea and sky with it. The sea at last light was still so alien to him, even after nearly two centuries. It was bizarre, but also calming in a way that nothing else was. The water had a polished sheen to it without the moon’s pull, the surface occasionally rippled by the evening winds or the morning rains, but little else. On especially still days, it reflected the colors of the sunset back in unbroken panes that made him think of stained glass. Human settlements hadn’t moved this close to the coastlines yet, the forests and rivers still providing more for them than the sea could, so the seaside was also _quiet_. An endless, silent expanse.

He sighed and looked up to where the hazy ring of moon dust was coming into view. He’d been away from the train for a week, trekking up the western coast and updating his internal map of the isles, but there was no rush to get back. The train would be there when he got back and time away would simply be measured by new rosemary growth, paid for in a little extra time with the machete. Instead of making his way inland, he toed off his boots and settled cross-legged on the hillside.

When the stars came out, they reflected off the mirrored surface of the water, creating the illusion of empty space on all sides. A vertigo-inducing sight that gave him the impression of floating in space.

Aziraphale sat there until the dawn clouds rolled in, trying to pick out Alpha Centauri and wondering if the humans who left Earth centuries ago had survived among the stars somewhere.

* * *

He opted to walk back. It would take a few days and there would be no avoiding the rain, but it seemed safer, seeing as there were several villages between him and the train. Whatever baffling twist of fate had spirited his miracles away had seen fit to leave him with his wings, his immortality, and his ability to sense love, but without the ability to alter memories or heal himself should he be injured, being spotted had become a real concern. Better to find the tracks, set his feet on the path, and let his mind continue its meditations as he made his way back.

Finding the tracks wasn’t always easy, however. Rosemary, moss, and dense ferns hid them completely, sometimes for miles at a time. In other spots, they were broken and twisted off in another direction. Sometimes they were simply gone. The closer he got to the old cities, the more he had to acquaint himself with the new landmarks as the tracks had been torn up or buried, the old motorways often covered by forests or rivers, and the cities… Well. Those were different beasts entirely. Almost nothing about them resembled cities anymore, and to call them _landmarks_ felt trivial somehow.

He’d charted Manchester Falls and Birmingham Canyon from the air on previous excursions like this one. Similar to London, the old hubs of humanity had been leveled, but unlike the lake, he could still find the occasional shell of a neighborhood. A shop or a house or a cafe that had somehow avoided the initial blast, only to be claimed by the centuries of neglect that followed, the moss and vines and moisture turning them into something more akin to forest caves than buildings. The silhouette of a street, set back from the lip of the canyon and covered by a meadow of wildflowers, rosemary twisting up the remains of lampposts and through the hollow shells of cars.

It was beautiful, if he was being perfectly honest. Terrible, painful, lonesome — and astonishingly beautiful, watching the planet stitch itself back together after being left for dead. It was an overwhelming sorrow that chimed through him like a choir of bells, a crescendo of silver voices that echoed louder and brighter until they were the only sounds he could hear. He had become very good at casting his mind back to quieter places when the bells started to sing.

The night was his favorite quiet place. The view of the stars might be new, but knowing that the stars themselves were the same as they’d always been was a comfort. Something to anchor himself on.

Aziraphale walked through the next night, his feet on the tracks and his mind in the stars. There was a long stretch of visible track that meandered north and east before disappearing into the forest. Once he was on it, he was familiar enough with the area to navigate by starlight and moondust. Beyond that, the woods were a simple matter in the daylight, and the train was just another day’s hike past the trees. With a little luck, he’d be back before the second rain cycle — a thought he lingered on as he sulked beneath the old bus shelter, waiting out the morning downpour. Wet clothes, as it turned out, were dreadful when one couldn’t miracle them dry.

He’d made it a few miles into the forest before ducking into the shelter, and without anything else to focus on, he was beginning to daydream again. He tried to imagine what this forest must have looked like in the Old World. The shelter and the train tracks were the only visible hints and they were so covered with rosemary and moss that they might not even look Old World to the casual observer. Perhaps there was a street somewhere. A ruin, hidden in the trees away from the tracks. He was mapping in his head what the closest city would have been and considering an afternoon detour when the voices cut through the patter of rain — two of them, talking and laughing over each other in equal measure.

“I dunno, I’ve always kinda thought it looked like a ladder,” a young voice said, followed by a muted _thwack_ sound.

“A _ladder_?” laughed a second. Another dull _thwack_. “That doesn’t even make sense!”

“Makes a lot more sense than leylines.”

“Pfft, leylines are way cooler though. Besides what kind of ladder would be _miles_ long?” _Thwack_. “And buried in the dirt.”

“One that belonged to extremely huge people. Maybe gods!” _Thwack_. “Or monsters!”

Two hooded figures came into view then, looping around opposite sides of a giant oak tree that grew in the middle of the tracks. They each held a long stick that they were using to lazily swat the moss-covered bar of the tracks as they walked.

“Oh, wow. Gods?” said Leylines, in a slow, awestruck tone. His stick found an exposed stripe of iron, making it ring like a bell. “That is… so uninspired. Ow! Hey— Owww, quit it!”

“ _You’re_ uninspired!” cried Monsters, giving him another playful poke in the ribs with her stick, all bark and no bite.

Aziraphale watched, hypnotized, from his shelter as they dissolved into shouts of laughter and an impromptu sword fight. It was such a simple interaction — friendly and comfortable and carefree. It was so _human_. A side of humanity he hadn’t seen outside of memories and dreams in centuries. As much as he had come to enjoy Minna’s visits over the years, she had always been quiet. Even once she had come out of her shell and overcome her skittish stutter, she remained stoic. It had simply been her nature. Curious and clever, but solitary. Pensive.

These two were anything but. They bobbed and weaved through their game until Monsters finally reached some invisible threshold. She threw her head back and let out a dramatic roar, shaking her hood to her shoulders to reveal dark hair cut pixie short. Then she charged at Leylines and threw her arms around his middle, knocking the air out of both of them in a whoosh as they both tumbled to the muddy ground.

“My pack, you walnut!” Leylines gasped as he tried to scramble to his feet. “Mum’ll be so mad if— _Ow!_ ”

Monsters elbowed him in the ribs and nodded across the tracks to Aziraphale. They both fell still and stared at him.

Aziraphale blinked for a few speechless seconds. “Er, hello,” he eventually said, forcing a small smile and a sheepish wave. He couldn’t help feeling like he was interrupting a private moment, even though they were the ones who had stumbled into his space. “Don’t mind me, just waiting out the rain.”

The two of them frowned at each other, then Monsters turned back to Aziraphale. “Not really dressed for it, are you?” she said, sitting up on her knees and flipping her hood back over her head. “Who the stars goes out in the morning without a hood?”

Leylines gave her a horrified look, mouthed _wow_ at her, then said to Aziraphale, “What mushbrain here means to say is, _hello, sorry to bother you, have you lost your hood?_ ”

Monsters rolled her eyes and made a _pfft_ sound. “Yeah. Right. That.”

Aziraphale’s clothes were a mishmash of Old World and New, and looking at these two, he realized exactly how strange he must look. Minna had acted as his go-between however many years ago, helping him trade for water-resistant trousers and boots as his old clothes slowly went threadbare in the absence of miracles. She’d been baffled by the stubborn way he kept wearing his camel hair coat, however.

_It’s extremely waterproof_ , he had sniffed at her.

_It’s wearing out. It’s got no **hood**_ , she'd huffed in return.

By the time he was ready to admit that she might be right and perhaps it was time for a lanolin-treated poncho, she had moved on with her life and stopped coming round for tea.

“It’s no bother,” Aziraphale said. “And I’m quite alright without a hood.”

“You’re avoiding the rain,” Monsters said flatly.

“I don’t like getting wet.”

“That’s what _hoods_ are for.”

“I was due for a rest anyway.”

“Yeah but—”

“Nolia, _honestly_ ,” Leylines interrupted. “Give it a rest, yeah?”

She scowled at him, but pushed herself to her feet and bent to help him up as well. Then, seeming to soften somewhat, she turned to Aziraphale and said, “We do have a spare. Unstitched, but…” she trailed off, her eyes moving down the seams of Aziraphale’s coat. She frowned. “…Looks like you don’t mind?”

“Ah. Unaffiliated,” Aziraphale said. As far as he knew, it wasn’t unheard of for someone to not embroider their clothes—hermits still existed and not everyone sought out a stitch family—but Minna had made it clear that it was quite uncommon.

“So you’d _prefer_ it that way. Great.” She slung her pack off her shoulder and rummaged in it briefly, then pulled out a folded bundle of grey cloth.

“You’re seriously just giving our clothes away now?” Leylines said, crossing the tracks to follow her towards Aziraphale’s shelter.

She let out a dramatic sigh. “It’s an _extra_. Because _you_ are a klutz enough for us to need it. Besides,” she said with a smirk, “when Mum hears we helped someone in need, she might be pleased enough to ignore the fact that you ripped your pack. Again.”

“Wha— I didn’t— _You_ —” He inspected the bag, which did indeed have a torn seam that was likely taking on water, and threw up his hands. “ _Wow_ , Nolia. Wow.”

She grinned at him, skipped out of his reach, and held the bundle out to Aziraphale. “It’s pretty plain— just a practice weave, y’know? But it’s got a hood. It’s dry.”

“Um…” Aziraphale said, stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he let her put the cloak in his hands. “I…”

“I’m Nolia. This toenail is my brother, Bo,” she went on, jerking a thumb over her shoulder and exuding a confidence that he hadn’t encountered since… well, since before the world ended.

“My mantle to bear,” muttered Bo. He sidled up next to her and crouched down to assess the damage to his pack.

Up close, it was very obvious that they were siblings, somewhere in the indeterminate stretch of their teenage years. They had the same dark eyes, round faces, and dimples. The same mannerisms and speech patterns, even similar gaits. And for all their teasing and bickering, the fierce and protective love that ran between them was a tangible bond to Aziraphale’s senses.

Even without all that, however, he could have read it in their stitching. The same stylized willow tree was embroidered into both of their hoods, signifying their family name, while the pattern along their shoulders told him they were from the nearby village of Fenna. The designs on their cuffs said that Nolia had finished training in agriculture and woodworking, while Bo had favored fishing and foraging. And as for the color of the thread, which was simply personal preference, they had both chosen a pale sky blue.

Aziraphale smiled sadly and wondered, not for the first time, who had learned more in the friendship between him and Minna.

“I’ve got you at a bit of a disadvantage here, being unstitched and all,” he said, still feeling somewhat dazed. “My name— My stitchname— is Fell, and I live, erm… east of here…” He trailed off and stared down at the cloak in his hands. Judging by how dry Bo and Nolia were, even after hiking in the rain and wrestling in the mud, the lanolin treatment they used was more effective than he realized. “This is exceptionally kind of you, my dear.”

“Hmm?” Nolia jerked her head up from watching over her brother’s shoulder and flashed a wide grin. “Oh! Yeah, don’t mention it!”

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything to offer you in return.”

She waved a dismissive hand at him. “Gives us a chance to practice weaving some more.” Then she looked back down at Bo and gave him a gentle nudge in the tailbone with her boot. “‘S’barely torn at all, you big baby.”

“Well it _looked_ bad,” he huffed. He tugged at the seam and, apparently satisfied with its durability, shrugged the pack back over his shoulders. “Must’ve been a shadow or something.”

Bo rested his palms on his knees and looked up at Aziraphale. “So, um… what’s east? And you don’t have to tell us where you’re from,” he added in a rush. “I know that can be really personal for the solitary folks. But just… in general?”

“We haven’t really been past the forest,” Nolia said.

Aziraphale, realizing he was still holding the cloak out in front of him, lowered his hands to his lap and frowned thoughtfully. “Much of the same, I suppose. There are more forests. Rivers. Villages spread all across—”

“We know about the _villages_ ,” Bo scoffed, then schooled his face back into a sheepish expression. “But stories come through town about other stuff, y’know? The— The ruins and the lake. The haunted castle.”

“I don’t know anything about a haunted castle,” Aziraphale laughed weakly, “but there are ruins, yes. Plenty of them, in fact. The larger places— Old World cities and the like— didn’t really survive, but small ruins can be found almost everywhere if you know how to look. The lake is actually—” he took a breath and forced his mind away from London. “—The lake is also a ruin. A big one.”

“Whoa,” breatherd Bo.

“How do you know?” asked Nolia.

Aziraphale shrugged. “I explore. I poke around and learn things.”

He braced himself for cries about the radiation, but they never came. Instead, the siblings exchanged a long, quiet look.

“Tell you what,” Aziraphale said, breaking the silence. “If you ever decide you want to learn more, follow the tracks east. There’s a museum with lots of Old World artifacts about a day’s walk past the forest. Stick to the tracks and you can’t miss it.”

“Wait, it’s _real_?”

Aziraphale frowned. “It… is.” He hadn’t realized stories of the train had travelled, but he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. It was a strange landmark and humans were curious creatures.

Bo climbed to his feet and nudged his sister. Aziraphale thought he caught _tracks_ and _Fell_ as they put their heads together, but let his attention drift back down to the cloak in his hands. He unfolded it slowly and draped it over his shoulders, pulling the hood over his head. It was far softer than he would have guessed — almost downy, and it had a faint grassy smell that made him think of sunshine. He wondered how long that would linger in the fabric, now that the cloak had changed hands.

He looked up at the two of them and found them both watching him intently. “Thank you very much, dears,” he said, voice thick with emotion. He received a matched set of dimpled grins in return.

“We’re gonna go — we want to and hit the treeline before the sun,” Bo said, nodding to the west, “but maybe we’ll see you around sometime. At the museum or whatever.”

“It’s certainly not going anywhere,” Aziraphale said with a smile.

He stood and followed them to the tracks where they were picking up their sticks to resume their walking and _thwack-_ ing. The rain pattered softly against his new hood as he watched them go, the droplets beading up and rolling off of him. It had been such a kind, simple thing — something Nolia didn’t seem to think twice about, but had changed Aziraphale’s daily routine for the better.

“How would metal leylines even _work_ ,” he heard her say over the rain. “I thought the whole point of leylines was that they’re _invisible_.”

“Maybe that’s just what leylines want you to think,” Bo said. “It’s all a big cover-up to protect leyline identities.” _Thwack._

“Oh what, they have feelings now?” _Thwack._

“I’m sorry, what was that about _gods and monsters_?”

“Toenail.”

“Walnut.”

Their conversation grew fainter as they walked, the impact of their sticks on the tracks echoing after their voices had faded away. But it wasn’t their verbal sparring that held Aziraphale’s attention. It wasn’t the way they made the tracks sing like a bell or the hypnotic sound of the rain that made his feet put down roots.

It was the flowers. Clusters of pale sky blue flowers that sprung to life in every footprint Bo and Nolia left behind them.

Aziraphale stood in the rain and stared, struck speechless and senseless, as magic— _miracles_ —trickled out of the two young humans and into the world.


	4. Ionization

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick PSA for folks following this as a WIP: we've shuffled some of the art around. The first illustration in this chapter was previously embedded in chapter 3, and there is NEW ART IN CHAPTER 3 that I (diminishingreturns) am begging you to go back and look at because cassie did an extraordinary job. The seedling art at the end of the previous chapter has also been moved to this one, and the final illustration in chapter 3 has been updated with the correct version.
> 
> Also! The chapter count has gone up by one. The conclusion had enough ground to cover that it made sense to split it, but the final two chapters should go up in pretty quick succession. 
> 
> We love you! Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoy the chapter!

* * *

Aziraphale found him in the community gardens on launch day. The garden was empty in spite of the gorgeous summer weather, but this didn’t come as a surprise. Everyone who hadn’t been able to see the launch in person was packed into a pub or a library or a school to view the event. A few of the local cinemas had even sanctioned off their screens for viewing the launch in real time. He couldn’t recall a single event that didn’t involve sports or war ever generating this kind of planet-wide interest, but the excitement had reached a rolling boil weeks ago and showed no signs of letting up any time soon. It was truly remarkable. History in the making.

And Crowley had hardly left the town’s garden all week. Today, he was crouched in a row of young grapevines, dirt thoroughly ground into his knees and hands, a pair of gardening shears tucked into an extremely endearing holster on his belt.

Aziraphale leaned against a trellis and just _admired_ for a moment before he finally spoke up. “I was wondering what you were planning on doing with this plot.”

Crowley lifted his head with a start. His glasses slipped slightly down his sweat-streaked nose with the movement and he hastily shoved them back up, his hand leaving behind a smudge of dirt.

“Yeah, well, it was either this or apple trees and that seemed a bit… gauche.” He leaned back on his heels and squinted up at Aziraphale. “ _Where_ did you get that hat?”

Aziraphale beamed at him from behind the shadow of his floppy sunhat. “You don’t like it?”

“Hm, poor wording. Let me try again.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, adding yet more dirt to his face. “I desperately need to know where you got that hat so that I can get you a hundred more and make sure you wear one at all times.”

“It’s one of a kind, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale laughed. “Angela made it.”

“Drat. Better take good care of it then. _Tip top condition_ and all that.”

“As long as you do the same for that ridiculous holster, you have a deal.”

Crowley snorted and reached for a spool of twine. “Sure, angel. I’ll never take it off, you have my word.” Then he shook his head and muttered, “Librarians making sunhats, what’s this world coming to?”

“The end times are surely near.”

“Nice of it to go out with a sigh instead of fires and floods.” He began to tie loose loops to the bamboo stake in front of him, then helped the vine climb through them towards the trellis.

 _Adam would have approved_ , Aziraphale almost said, but found that particular hurt was still a bit too fresh. He imagined it would _always_ have a certain sting to it. He cleared his throat and said instead, “Care to elaborate on why apples or grapes were the only possibilities for this plot?”

“Garden’s already got pears, hasn’t it? Cherries and plums too.” He turned away from Aziraphale and looked down the row of vines he’d already trussed, his hands fiddling absently with the twine. “Simon likes the fruit trees,” he added sheepishly. “I thought he might like to see some different ways that fruit can grow. And I wanted to plant something that would… y’know. Last.”

Aziraphale smiled fondly at the back of Crowley’s head and wondered how he’d managed to get dirt behind _both_ ears. “He’s taken a real shine to you.”

“He’s five, he doesn’t know any better,” Crowley said. “What’s Angela’s excuse?” he added, shooting an impish grin over his shoulder.

“I’m certain she sees me as some great puzzle and simply has too much Device blood in her to be able to let that go.”

“Mm. A real firebrand.”

“An unbreakable family tradition at this point.”

“Makes up for Georgie’s truly shocking bout of unoriginality in naming their kid,” muttered Crowley. He put a hand on each knee and shoved himself to his feet, then moved to crouch in front of the next vine. “Can’t win ‘em all I guess.”

“Perhaps Angela’s grandchildren can be convinced of Beatrice or Benedick as baby names,” Aziraphale said. “Don’t give up the good fight just yet, dear.”

Crowley just scoffed and unsheathed his shears, then went to work finding the longest runner on the new vine.

“Crowley, do you think…” Aziraphale bit his lip and considered not touching the subject. It wasn’t too late to step back and continue dancing around it. To fall back into their comfortable banter — the teasing and the flirtation and the inside jokes.

Except they’d gotten so much _better_ at talking in the time since the world didn’t end. It hadn’t been easy or quick—six thousand years weren’t rewritten in a single toast to the world—but it had been a place to start. There had been arguments and misunderstandings as they figured out how to tie their lives together without loopholes— careful explorations of what did and didn’t work, apologies and compromises, candid conversation after millennia of speaking in code. Perhaps most importantly, they had friends this time who somehow never seemed to run out patience. Crowley would disappear in the Bentley until Newt or Warlock or Georgie could talk some sense him. Or Aziraphale would stubbornly hole up in the bookshop for weeks until Anathema or Adam or Angela threatened to hand out _A.Z. Fell & Co _coupons if he didn’t snap out of it. They’d been graced with people who had cared about them enough to help Crowley slow down just a touch, prod Aziraphale to speed up just a hair, until they could meet in the middle.

It had taken decades. Quite frankly, Aziraphale often felt like their work was far from done, but they kept at it because they loved the work. It was hard, occasionally infuriating, but always worthwhile.

He drew in a quick breath and followed Crowley. He sank to the ground next to him and sat back on his heels, pressing his knees into the dirt. “Do you think we should have gone with them?” Aziraphale said, trading the playful lilt of his voice in for something much more serious.

Crowley fell still, eyes fixed on his hands. “Bit late now, isn’t it?” he eventually said.

“To join the initial fleet, yes. There will be more.”

Crowley was silent for another long moment. He occupied himself with the plant, cutting away excess runners and holding the longest vine up against the stake. When it became clear the vine wasn’t long enough to reach the trellis, he dropped it with a sigh.

“D’you want to?” he said in a quiet, steady voice. Whatever subtle play of emotion might have been crossing his face was obscured by his sunglasses. “Leave, I mean.”

“I don’t think it’s a question of want.”

“You think it’s a matter of _should_?” A tiny muscle in Crowley’s jaw tensed and relaxed a few times. “What, like… like _duty_?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“Duty to _whom_?” Crowley said, turning to fully face him.

Aziraphale frowned and tilted his head to one side. “Humanity, Crowley. You don’t think I meant—”

“Obviously you didn’t mean Heaven,” Crowley said with a distracted wave of his hand. “Hell either, they can both bugger right off. What do you think we owe _them_?” he jerked a thumb at the sky. “The ones leaving. What do you honestly think we could do for them?”

“That’s rather the point, isn’t it? It’s a great unknown that they’re hurtling into. You don’t feel a certain amount of obligation? We did cast our lot with humans, after all.” Aziraphale placed a hand on top of his hat and lifted his face to squint at the bright summer sky. “I suppose… I just can’t shake the feeling that we’re being left behind. Humanity is taking a running leap forward and we’re missing the chance to walk alongside them.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said. His voice turned soft and caring, a vein of sadness running through its center. It was a tone he only let out when they were alone. A side of him that belonged only to Aziraphale. He reached out and took Aziraphale’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Angel. They’re not all going to leave. They’re _never_ all going to leave.”

“They could,” Aziraphale said quietly, dropping his gaze to their linked hands.

“Sure. They won’t though.” He rubbed his thumb along the side of Aziraphale’s index finger as he spoke. “Even if this whole lottery thing weren’t rigged, there’s no way— oi, roll your eyes all you want, I promise you that system is neither fair nor balanced— but there’s no way _ten billion people_ are ever going to all want the same thing. Lock _ten_ of them in a room and tell them they’ll be free once they agree on pizza toppings, I guarantee they’ll starve. You really think the entirety of their species is going to agree about something like this? With their planet in a sodding golden age?”

“Obviously not, but what if— what if they _need_ us?”

“They… Angel, they haven’t needed us for a long time,” Crowley said. “Could be they never did, who knows.” He nodded at the sky and said, “All this? Reaching for the stars? Exploring purely for the sake of exploration? They did all this on their own, maybe _because_ the Great Plan went up in smoke and we stopped meddling. Besides, we’re a gardener and an archivist. Bloody useless in space if you ask me.”

Aziraphale stared at their hands as Crowley spoke. At the long, clever fingers tangled in his own clean, manicured ones. There was an enormous feeling of existential uncertainty looming over him like a storm cloud. The tension that came from watching the side they had chosen split and spiral away from each other on wildly divergent paths. The worry that no matter which path they chose they were still abandoning _someone_. He tried to fit it inside words, to find some way to talk about feeling directionless and doubtful and all the things that went against his angelic nature, but found himself lost in the little smudges of dirt Crowley’s fingers were leaving on his.

“What if it’s the wrong choice?” he managed.

Crowley shrugged. “Then it’s the wrong choice. We’ll course-correct. Make new choices.” He gave Aziraphale’s hand a small squeeze. “‘S’the whole point of choice. Sometimes you screw it up.”

Aziraphale raised his eyes to his ridiculous floppy-hatted reflection in Crowley’s glasses. Crowley’s eyebrows were raised, his brow slightly furrowed in concern above his shades, face streaked with sweat and so much dirt, cheeks freckled and flushed. He still felt the storm cloud over him — it might still rain on them, but Crowley’s presence made him think he might not mind so much. They’d been taking turns being each other’s shelter since the first rainfall.

So he smiled at Crowley and said, “You have dirt all over your face, you know.” Then he closed his eyes and leaned into the hand that came up to cup his jaw.

“So do you,” said Crowley, thumbing across his cheek. He smelled like sun and sweat and freshly turned earth. New smells — things that covered the spice and autumn leaves and almost-campfire that Aziraphale knew must be there. Pushed them down. Away.

He tried to focus, tried to find the familiar scents, recited their names in his head as though he could summon them from the ether.

_Cinnamon. Smoke. Leaves._

A bright ache was starting to flash between his shoulder blades. Slow, rhythmic pulses like a lighthouse, reminding him where land was.

He took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then released it as he lowered his wings. He moved slowly, observing each micro-adjustment in the long line of muscle as his wings arced from high above his head until they were suspended straight out behind him, a right angle with his spine. He held them there, as still as a painting — eyes closed and face turned to the sky, hands folded and resting in his lap.

He tried to think of nothing.

Or, since he still found it quite impossible to empty his head of all thought entirely, he tried to think of the physical shape of himself and nothing else. The angles and curves of bone and muscle and feather, the angel-shaped displacement he put into the world. The place where he ended and his environment began.

When he took another breath, it was deep and slow, and he used it to focus on the ache roaring between his shoulder blades. He conjured the image of summer as his wings started to tremble against the strain. Nimble fingers crafting a hempen ladder for a young grapevine. A smudge of dirt behind an ear. Freckles.

When he felt he had reached the physical limits of his corporation, he lowered his wings, letting them hang over the edge of the train behind him. He opened his eyes.

The stars were shockingly bright without city light or the moon to detract from them. The New World saw him once again in the company of stars he had become acquainted with in Eden, relearned the shape of when humans defined constellations, then traded his view of in favor of a life in London. The lynx, the unicorn, the little horse — regular sights once more against the bright plume of the Milky Way, though he thought it likely that he was the only one who still knew them by those names and myths.

He’d been perched on the roof long enough for his eyes to fully adjust. Rosemary grew around the train in dense thickets, the flowers appearing almost gold in the silvery starlight. Over the years, he had kept up the diligent work of cutting it back and creating paths, but the vines still clustered tightly enough to prevent any other plant from finding a foothold. In the absence of trees or anything capable of growing taller than the train, the dome of the sky was unimpeded and the stars were just bright enough to cast shadows.

Just bright enough to read by.

He pulled the writing board into his lap and unpacked his latest project on top of it. The quill had been the easiest step, carved from one of his own primaries. The inks had been a bit trickier, requiring experimentation with pigments and solvents, but he’d cracked it after some trial and error. The green, red, and yellow inks, in spite of being murky and diminished versions of the rosemary leaves and flowers they had been derived from, were still vibrant enough to be obvious _colors_ instead of the stodgy greys his first attempts had been. He set the three teacups of colored ink into the divots on the left side of the board, and positioned the fourth teacup—the one with the broken handle that held the little pool of rich, glossy lampblack ink—on the right side, next to his quill.

The third piece of the puzzle had been the unplanned one. A book, an _actual book_ , recovered during his recent trip to the Norwich ruins, sat in the middle of the writing board. He placed his hands on its cover, resting a thumb on the clasp that held it tightly shut, and took a moment to appreciate the simple feeling of a _book_ under his fingers for the first time in centuries.

He’d been putting off the trip to Norwich, certain that it would simply be _gone_ like London was. A trek across the continent, ending in another holed out remnant of someplace he once loved sounded like more than his heart could bear. Curiosity and a touch of boredom had won in the end, however, and while the reality of Norwich couldn’t hold a candle to London Lake, the city was still, for the most part, gone.

Chapelfield Gardens was now the heart of a dense forest that covered nearly half of the old city’s footprint. Elms and oaks and willows took full advantage of their freedom and moved east, tearing up the cobbled streets until they butted up against the River Yare — now a brackish swamp that ballooned all the way to the sea.

The shells of a few structures remained in the northern portion of the city — the frame of a house grown over with rosemary here, a lamppost sticking out of the trunk of a massive oak there. The cathedral was gone, either crumbled and lying at the bottom of the Yare, or the spires had toppled and become part of the forest floor. It was impossible to tell without putting one’s nose to the ground for some serious archaeological detective work. Something Aziraphale had been prepared to spend days investigating if it hadn’t been for the castle. The majority of Norwich Castle, somehow intact, sitting fully above the waterline on a small island.

The castle was missing a portion of its roof in one corner and a few walls had crumbled in on its courtyard, exposing the interior to the elements and giving vines an opportunity to snake through some of the rooms. The paintings and tapestries had not stood up to centuries of this treatment, but there was still plenty that _had_ survived. The farther into the castle Aziraphale had delved, the more sculptures and tools and relics he found. He’d spent three days there, working his way slowly through the rooms of the museum, filling his pack with what treasures would survive the trip back, and trying to commit everything else to memory.

There had been an ostrich egg, its shell intricately carved with the image of a rigged sailing ship, set inside an unbroken glass case that he had stared at for hours, trying to fathom how such a thing could have possibly survived the end of the world. A set of stained glass roundels depicting the labors of gardeners in different seasons. A viking longship that had spanned the length of a second floor balcony.

And nestled in the corner of the castle farthest from the collapsed roof and creeping vines, was the exhibition on monasteries. Ancient tools for scribing and brewing, archaic medical supplies, a collection of books and scrolls that had long since rotted into useless, pulpy lumps… and a single illuminated manuscript sitting inside its glass case like the pride of a dragon’s hoard.

It was the closest Aziraphale had come to weeping in two hundred years. He felt the same heat build behind his eyes as he sat under the too-bright light of the Milky Way and ran his fingers down the spine of the book. There was no name he knew for this emotion — the feeling of loving something this fiercely, everything from the smell of it to the abstract concepts it represented. Loving it without ever intentionally seeking it out. Building a life around it. Losing it. Mourning it. Thinking he had healed, only to have it dropped back in his lap and discovering that some wounds never _fully_ heal.

He thumbed the clasp apart and eased the book open before his thoughts could get lost in that particular labyrinth. The cover was soft leather over wood, its pages were parchment, _real parchment_ , each calfskin sheet meticulously stretched and soaked and scraped with the intention of creating something that could last a thousand years or more. It was filled with prayers and psalms, the focus more on text than decorations and illuminations, though there were still some flourishes in the margins. A book of hours. Once commonplace, a rare treasure in the twenty-second century, quite possibly the last of its kind now.

But he wasn’t interested in the prayers. Perhaps he _should_ have been, if the pang of guilt as he turned pages without reading was any indication, but this book of hours had a very particular oddity. For some unknowable reason, the last twenty pages were blank. He turned to the first blank page, picked up his quill, and paused with it held over the teacup of black ink.

He hadn’t put pen to paper in… two hundred years? Three hundred? Far more if he was counting however long he had been stuck without a corporation. The years had become increasingly difficult to measure in the absence of seasons, but the flow of people around him and the slow deterioration of the remaining Old World ruins provided enough of a gauge to tell him it had been centuries. There was so much knowledge he’d been holding onto in hopes of a moment like this one, but now that he was faced with a blank page he found he had absolutely no idea where to start.

The war, perhaps? He had been out of commission for nearly all of it, but he still knew enough to have some insight on the new shape of things. The cities? Surely there was some merit to remembering humanity as they had once been. The people who had once thrived here before their homes were turned to lakes and canyons and swamps. Magic? The way it had left him without warning, then casually taken up residence in humans.

The way Heaven had been silent on all counts…

Aziraphale bit his lip and stared into the single rosemary vine that had escaped the machete and grown uninhibited across the roof of the train, lost in the bright yellow and silvery green as he tried to figure out what he could possibly write in a moment like this. What could _possibly_ be good enough? It was all too big. Too layered. Too much had happened— was still happening.

He decided to start small instead, and let his hand drift over to the colored inks, dipping into the green and using it to sketch instead of write. He drew a stem, a leaf, a tiny spiraling filament, and let his thoughts rest on tangible things as he worked. Tea and flowers. The truly extraordinary shade of yellow. If rosemary could be used in baking. When he was satisfied with the leaf, he moved on to the yellow ink and drew the ten-pointed star of a rosemary flower, then the red to fill in the pollen and stripes in the petals.

It was simple and grounding. The feel of the quill in his hand, the scratch of it against the parchment, the smell of the book — it all came back to him like comfortable and familiar muscle memory. This time, when he reached for the black ink, he found it much easier to begin writing.

> _I’ve never been able to discover when or why humans started calling the plant “rosemary,” as it bears no resemblance to the extinct Old World herb, but I suspect the answer is somewhat trivial. Stories told around campfires and at bedsides, or simply a misunderstanding that stuck in the language like a burr. Regardless of the lore attached to the plant, it has become a fixture in daily life. In addition to tea, the buds and leaves are used decoratively and as a culinary garnish, the roots and stalks are edible and resemble sweet potatoes when stewed, and the flowers can be refined into bright pigments. Most recently, humans have been deriving a medicinal poultice from old vine flowers._
> 
> _There seems to be no place where rosemary doesn’t thrive. The vines grow wild across the continent, flourishing in every biome and quality of light. I’ve wondered if it perhaps has some symbiotic relationship with its environment, as it climbs every tree and structure it can get close enough to, yet never seems to choke out established plant life. An oak covered in rosemary is still a healthy oak underneath the vines. When rosemary climbs a wall, she does so gently, as though it were a friend she means to hold up rather than watch crumble._

Aziraphale paused with his quill above the teacup. He had reached the bottom of the first page and was already settling into writing in the book as though it were a journal. He reminded himself that this might be his last chance to write in an actual book as he reloaded his quill. Journaling was all well and good, but objectivity seemed more important than flowery language at this juncture.

“Collect and remember the past as it actually was,” he muttered as he moved his hand to the other side of the book. “Be a _historian_ , not a _poet_.”

> _Old World rosemary was a woody, perennial herb — a squat evergreen shrub with delicate purple flowers and a sharp, piney smell. I’m not certain it’s extinct as I have not left the British Isles, but I haven’t encountered it once in the 300 years I’ve been back. Stories of old rosemary, much like the moon and seasons, are typically met with either laughter or unease._

The suggestion of a smile flickered across Aziraphale’s face as he remembered trying to explain snow to Bo’s daughter. She had laughed until she was a hopeless pile of tears and hiccups, then demanded he tell her again, but _“do the voices this time,”_ whatever that meant. Bo had just grinned and shrugged at his perplexed expression, then gone back to fiddling with the Swiss Army knife he’d unearthed from a ruin earlier that week. Nolia, ever the agitator, had hollered from across the train that her niece should _ask for stories about “the moon” next._ It all would have been terribly frustrating if it hadn’t been so endearing.

> _Rosemary is far from the only change to the world, however. My estimate, based on the state of the surviving ruins and relics that I can find, is that it’s been 500 years since the war, but the time between my exit and reentry is hazy at best. The old cities were apparently targets, or perhaps battlegrounds, and almost nothing remains of them. London is a crater lake, Birmingham is a canyon I’ve not yet attempted to explore the depths of, Manchester is a stunning stretch of cascading waterfalls, Norwich is a forested swamp, and many of the old coastal settlements—Brighton, Liverpool, Blackpool—were swallowed by the sea. Aside from occasional structural weaknesses, these areas are safe to traverse, but humans attach a great deal of superstition to them and give them an extremely wide berth._
> 
> _As for how these changes came about… I admit to being rather stumped. Any force strong enough to turn a city into a crater should have taken millennia to calm into a lake. The destruction of the moon should have taken eons to settle into a ring. The planet being this lush and habitable this soon flies in the face of all reason. On this matter, I have entertained some theories, although they are all extremely speculative._

Aziraphale came up for thought again. He had filled more than half the second page, and would have to wait for the ink to dry before he could turn to the next. Hoping to fit as much information as he could into this first entry, he switched to lists.

> _THEORIES REGARDING THE RAPID CHANGES TO EARTH:_
> 
>   * _Perhaps I am not the only angel on Earth. Others could be present and executing an ineffable terraforming plan._
>   * _The miracle abilities that I lost were siphoned directly from me into the planet, unconsciously moving to the place they were needed most. Water flowing downhill, if you will — a sort of miracle osmosis._
>   * _I am the only angel left, the firmament broke, and its stock of miracles spilled into the physical world._
>   * _I have not dismissed the ~~hope~~ possibility that this is all a dream._
> 

> 
> _REGARDING HEAVEN:_
> 
>   * _Utter silence, ~~though I have not attempted prayer since~~ _
> 

> 
> _REGARDING HUMANS:_
> 
>   * _Their ability to perform miracles has spread beyond the siblings I first witnessed it in and seems present across the entire species. I wondered at first if rosemary was somehow responsible, but I consume it in the same ways they do and have never felt any effects._
>   * _The scope of their magic seems relatively harmless, and often bafflingly mundane. Their miracles include:_
>   * _Changing the color of an object they touch._
>   * _Floating an inch off the ground._
>   * _Hairstyles that change seemingly with mood._
>   * _Creating harmless oddities such as flowers or bubbles out of nothing._
> 

> 
> _REGARDING ME:_
> 
>   * _My biology remains angelic._
>   * _I do not age, nor do I require food or sleep._
>   * _I can summon and dismiss my wings, but not my magic._
> 

> 
> _REGARDING CROWLEY_

Aziraphale stopped and blinked at the name. His writing had become faster and his script more compact as he moved down the page, the list format instilling him with a sense of urgency, his words becoming more train of thought than prose. He hadn’t _meant_ to write Crowley’s name. It just felt like the next step, as Crowley so often did. There were only a few blank lines left at the bottom of the page and trying to summarize his thoughts on Crowley in a handful of words was almost _offensive_ for how impossible it was. He could devote the entirety of the book to him and not even scratch the surface.

Besides, what was there to say about the matter in a list such as this? _Discorporated. Unknown. Missing. Lost. Gone._ He couldn’t bear to put any of them into the permanence of print, so instead he just stared at the name, a prickle building behind his eyes, until the pre-dawn clouds rolled over the stars. Then, he made one final mark in the book, gathered his supplies carefully so as not to disturb the wet ink, and went inside ahead of the rain.

> _~~REGARDING CROWLEY~~ _

**Author's Note:**

> We had a lot of fun putting our brains together to blow up the moon and basically create a new planet, but in reality, the events in this story would have been an extinction-level catastrophe. Thankfully, this Pratchettian version of Earth had magic on its side.
> 
> We can be found on tumblr [@cassieoh](https://cassieoh.tumblr.com/) and [@jessicafish](https://jessicafish.tumblr.com/)
> 
> come say hi!


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